


Lessons in Hissing and Spite

by gingertart50



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-22 02:07:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1572116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingertart50/pseuds/gingertart50
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Professor Trelawney makes a prophesy that Snape will die by snake-bite. Dumbledore suggests that Harry teach Snape to speak Parseltongue. Easier said than done...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lessons in Hissing and Spite

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Snarry-a-thon12. Wild Card #1: I took as my prompt a suggestion that Snape ought to try seducing Nagini behind the Dark Lord's back. So he did - the little tart.
> 
> Text quoted directly from _Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince_ and _Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows_ is given _in italics_.  
>  Thank you as always to my patient and long-suffering beta, lovetoseverus, who really did have to wrestle this one into submission. Thanks, pal, you're the best!

"Ah, Harry, excellent! Do take a seat." Dumbledore smiled and waved his shrivelled hand towards a squashy-looking armchair beside the fire. Harry nodded and turned to close the door behind him. Professor Snape was leaning against the wall, his arms folded and a sneer twisting his face.  
  
"You!" Harry exclaimed before he could stop himself.  
  
"Yes, Potter: me." Snape pushed himself away from the wall. "Headmaster, this is a complete waste of your time and mine. I cannot - "  
  
"Harry, Severus," Dumbledore sighed, "both of you need to make an effort. It is essential to the success of our campaign!"  
  
"No, Albus, it is not!" Snape snarled, striding across the office until he faced the Headmaster across his desk. "You place too much credence upon the word of that incompetent dipsomaniac; she spends her life in a fantasy world at the best of times and I cannot in good conscience agree with this - this feather-brained suggestion!" He flung out an arm to emphasise his frustration, his robes flaring dramatically, and almost upset the ink-pot.  
  
"It is not a suggestion, Severus," Dumbledore said mildly. Snape drew in a deep breath through his prodigious nose and Harry could see the vein throbbing in his temple.   
  
Dumbledore sighed. "Please, both of you, sit down and I'll explain. You will need to work together."  
  
So he did, and the result was unexpected. Harry Potter and Severus Snape looked at one another with identical expressions of horror, then back at Dumbledore.  
  
"No way!" Harry exclaimed. "You've got to be joking!"  
  
"I'm not joking, my boy."  
  
"Oh, Merlin," said Snape, and for the first time ever, Harry felt just a tiny glimmer of - well, not exactly sympathy, more pity, for the greasy git.

* * * * *

"Let me get this straight," Ron said, "you're going to have to start Occlumency lessons again, with Snape? After the disaster last year?"  
  
"Yeah," Harry sighed. He hated having to lie to his friends but Dumbledore had insisted.   
  
"But Harry, what are you going to tell everyone? You can hardly be going to him for remedial potions," Hermione said, "since he no longer even teaches the subject."  
  
"Defence training," Harry said shortly. "And I don't really want to talk about it. I'm trying not to think about it, to be honest. Snape hates my guts and that's never going to change."  
  
"Sorry, mate," Ron patted his shoulder. Harry nodded. He was dreading his first lesson.

* * * * *

He could do this. Harry drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He had taught the members of the DA, hadn't he? And jolly well, too, even if he said so himself. He needed to pretend that this was just another training session, except it might be a good idea to leave out the jokes and the teasing. Snape was unlikely to appreciate them. He knocked at the door and heard Snape's distinctive voice snap, "Enter!"   
  
Snape was sitting at his desk, marking scrolls. He made Harry wait until he had finished the one he was on, threw it aside and folded his arms.  
  
"Well, Potter? Get on with it, I haven't got all day."  
  
Harry drew a piece of parchment from his pocket and stared at it. He had carefully drawn a little green snake and enchanted it to wriggle realistically; it squirmed across the page to the corner, then turned and began to make its way around the margin. Snape said something but Harry was too busy concentrating upon the snake to take any notice.  
  
"Hello," Harry said, "how are you?" What came out was a series of harsh sibilants and Snape fell silent again. Harry looked up to find the man scowling at him. "That's a simple 'hello'," he explained. "You'll want to say something fairly easy to start with, just to let the snake know you can speak to it."  
  
"Ridiculous," Snape muttered, then gestured impatiently. "Say it again."  
  
Harry repeated the greeting, slowly. Snape snatched up a quill and parchment and began scribbling. "Again!" he snapped, "keep saying it while I make an attempt to phonetically transliterate your uncouth spitting and hissing."  
  
Harry refrained from rolling his eyes. It was a considerable effort, but he made it, if only for Dumbledore's sake. He repeated the words as Snape listened.  
  
"Now you say it," Harry said, and Snape turned on him an expression which would have made the Medusa herself have second thoughts. "Sir," Harry added belatedly, but it was too late.   
  
"I have no interest whatsoever in complying with your transparent attempts to make a fool of me," he spat. "This is a travesty and a waste of my time."  
  
Harry was very tempted to turn on his heel and storm out; however, his conscience would not let him. He took a deep breath and for once, thought carefully about what he actually wanted to achieve with this aggressive, infuriating wizard.   
  
"Professor Dumbledore said it might save your life, sir."  
  
"And it gives you yet another perfect excuse, doesn't it, Potter? Let's make Professor Snape's life a misery. Let's make him look a fool. Let's teach him idiotic phrases in some uncouth, made-up language and then have a good laugh with our little friends! Highly amusing, aren't you? So very like your father!"  
  
Harry had had enough. Abandoning the remnants of his temporary optimism, he marched to the door. "Detention, Potter! With Mr Filch, tonight!" Snape snarled after him. Harry sighed.   
  
"Yeah, whatever," he said over his shoulder and shook his head as Snape deducted twenty points for insolence. He needed to talk with his friends, Dumbledore's instructions to the contrary be damned.

* * * * *

"What's up?" Ron asked as Harry led him and Hermione into a deserted classroom. Harry put up every silencing, distracting, muffling and eavesdropping-alert charm he could think of.   
  
"Right," he said, tucking away his wand. "Professor Dumbledore told me not to tell you anything about this, right? So I'm not telling you."  
  
"Hang on, if Dumbledore said not to -" Ron shut up when Hermione nudged him.  
  
"We're carefully not listening, Harry," she said. Ron snorted and nodded.   
  
"Trelawney made another prophesy," Harry explained, "about Snape. He's going to die when the Dark - when _Voldemort_ sets his snake on him."  
  
Even Ron gave a little shudder.  
  
"So what's that got to do with us?" Hermione asked.  
  
"Dumbledore asked me to give Snape lessons in Parseltongue, but the stupid git won't listen, he just thinks I'm taking the piss. I don't know what to do about him. He's such a bastard! How am I supposed to teach him when he takes everything as an insult?"  
  
"You have to keep trying," Hermione said earnestly, "if Professor Dumbledore says it will save his life. He is on our side, after all."  
  
"Yeah," Harry said. "Personally, I just think that's an ugly rumour put about to confuse us."

* * * * *

At their next lesson, Snape insisted on testing Harry's Occlumency defences, shouted at him for not practising enough, made him speak a couple more phrases in Parseltongue which Snape wrote down, sneered a lot and sent him away. This set the pattern for the next couple of days. When Dumbledore enquired how their lessons were going, Harry shrugged.  
  
"Sn-Professor Snape isn't very keen," he said, trying to be tactful for once. "I don't think he trusts me."  
  
"I'm sure you'll find a way, Harry," the Headmaster said, beaming at him. "I have complete faith in you, my boy." This did not make him feel any better.   
  
_"So, Harry," said Dumbledore, in a businesslike voice, "you have been wondering, I am sure, what I have planned for you during these – for want of a better word – lessons?"  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
"Well, I have decided that it is time, now that you know what prompted Lord Voldemort to try and kill you fifteen years ago, for you to be given certain information..."_

* * * * *

"Come on, Harry," Hermione said breathlessly, grasping his hand, "quickly!"  
  
"Where are we going?" Harry enquired, with a wistful glance in the direction of the hall where everyone else was hurrying towards lunch.  
  
"Ron's had a brilliant idea but we need to get a move on, while the sun's out."  
  
"What's the weather got to do with it?"  
  
Ron was waiting for them, behind Hagrid's hut and near the edge of the Forest.   
  
"I haven't seen anything yet," he said, kicking morosely at a pile of leaves.   
  
"I didn't think you would," she told him. "Now, Harry, we want you to call out a greeting in Parseltongue."  
  
"Erm, why?"  
  
"We're looking for snakes."  
  
"Ri-ight..."  
  
"You're supposed to be teaching Professor Snape to talk to them, aren't you? Well, what's the best way for him to learn? Find one for him to talk to!"  
  
Harry rooted around in his robe pocket for the scrap of parchment with the drawing of a snake and began speaking to it.  
  
"Hello, is anyone there?"  
  
They walked along the edge of the wood, listening carefully, but eventually were forced to return to the castle to grab a sandwich from the kitchen and run to their next lessons.  
  
"Never mind, I didn't expect to find one straight away," Hermione assured him.

* * * * *

Eventually, while trudging doggedly past a patch of bramble and muttering, "Hello, can anyone hear me?" under his breath, Harry heard a tiny voice respond.  
  
"Yesss?" it whispered and he stooped down. Curled up in a ray of sunlight was a fat little snake with a yellow and brown zigzag pattern down its back. It raised its head and stared at him.  
  
"Hello," Harry said and it dipped its snout and flickered its black, forked tongue in the air.  
  
"Hello," it replied.  
  
He sat down on his heels.  
  
"You're poisonoussss, aren't you?"   
  
"Yessss," it said.  
  
"If I pick you up, will you bite me?"  
  
"Possssibly. Why sssshouldn't I?"  
  
"Because I promisss to feed you if you don't bite anyone."  
  
"If you inssssissst."   
  
He reached out and carefully scooped the reptile into his hands. It wriggled a little and then remarked, "Warm. Nice," and wrapped itself around his wrist. He hurried back to Hogwarts for dinner with the snake dozing inside his sleeve.  
  
When he showed it to Ron, his friend leaped backwards, almost upsetting the bench.  
  
"Bloody hell, Harry!"  
  
Harry hissed at him to keep his voice down and waited until everyone lost interest again before putting their heads together.  
  
"What's the matter? You knew I was looking for one."  
  
"Yeah, but that's an adder!"  
  
"Of course it is, the adder is the only snake in Scotland, Ron. Neither the smooth snake nor the grass snake live this far north." Hermione leaned over. "Can I see?"  
  
Harry whispered into his sleeve.  
  
"Thesse are my friendssss, ssso pleassse don't bite them. They won't hurt you."  
  
The adder licked at the air and peered out of the darkness inside Harry's robe.  
  
"You sssaid that you would feed me."  
  
"I will, assss ssssoon asss I've had my lunch. What do you eat?"  
  
"Mice, birdsss, eggsssss, lizardsss and frogsss."  
  
Harry relayed this information to Ron and Hermione. When they had eaten, Hermione led the way to an infrequently used corridor and pointed her wand at a tiny hole beneath a section of wooden panelling.  
  
" _Accio_ feral mouse!"  
  
A small grey rodent flew through the air, twisting in its attempts to escape her spell.  
  
"Sorry about this," she muttered, efficiently stunning the mouse. Harry placed the snake on the floor and it immediately struck at the mouse and began engulfing it.  
  
"What was the 'feral' bit for?" Ron asked curiously as they watched.  
  
"I didn't want it to eat someone's pet, or an Animagus. I knew there were mice around here, Crookshanks hunts down here all the time and I've seen him and Mrs Norris staking out that hole."  
  
Once the adder had swallowed its mouse, Harry tucked the now sleepy reptile into his pocket and went off to Charms class.

* * * * *

Harry knocked on the door of Snape's office and took a deep breath. Snape stared blankly at him for a moment then put down his quill.  
  
"Well, Potter? I'm busy, what do you want?"  
  
"I've got something for you, sir." Harry carefully removed the snake from his sleeve and placed it on the desk. Snape's breath came out in a hiss and he surged to his feet in a swirl of black robes.  
  
"How dare you!" He flicked his right wrist and his wand slid down his sleeve into his hand. Harry reached for his own wand, but realised that he would be too late to prevent Snape from Banishing the adder. He put his hand over the snake instead. "Potter, step aside!" Snape snarled, jerking his wand. Harry squashed his impulse to yell back. He had become quite fond of the snake and it was obvious that Snape intended to kill the creature.  
  
"I brought it for you to talk to!" Harry said loudly. Snape paused and he continued more quietly. "You won't speak Parseltongue to me because you don't trust me -"  
  
"I certainly do not!"  
  
"- but there's no reason you can't talk to a real snake while I'm not here. You can practice on it and you'll be able to tell if you've got it right because the snake'll answer you. It eats mice," he added. The snake nudged curiously at his hand and he stroked the top of its head with one finger. "It promises not to bite as long as it gets fed. I've already given it a mouse today."  
  
Snape turned away and waved his wand. A large glass tank appeared on the bench next to the wall, in between a heap of scrolls and a tray of potions bottles. Another wave and the tank was furnished with earth, rocks, ferns and a hollow log.  
  
"Put it in there," Snape said. There was a grudging note in his voice, as if he was reluctant to thank Harry or admit that getting the snake was actually a good idea.   
  
"Isss thisss all right?" Harry asked, placing the snake in the tank. "Do you need anything elsssse?"  
  
"Sssome water," the adder said, and Harry conjured a bowl, sank it into the soil and filled it with water. The adder dipped its tongue into the bowl and said, "Thankssss," before disappearing into the ferns.  
  
"Now go away," Snape told him and Harry was more than happy to oblige.

* * * * *

Harry only remembered the adder when he went into DADA class and saw a huge tank against the back wall, filled with rocks, plants and a rather nifty charmed waterfall trickling into a pool where fish flickered as they swam. He wandered over to look more closely and saw a familiar brown and yellow shape curled up in a cave in the rocks.  
  
"Hello," he whispered and the snake lifted its head.  
  
"Greetingssss," it hissed.  
  
"How are you?"  
  
"Sssssplendid. It isss warm here and the mice are tassssty."  
  
"Good." Harry glanced around, but he happened to be early and the rest of the class were still shuffling to their places, chattering and digging in their bags for textbooks. "How'sss Ssssnape getting on with his Parssseltongue lesssonsss?"  
  
"Hisss accent iss ssstrange."  
  
"But issss he ssspeaking to you?"  
  
"Oh yessss."  
  
Hermione murmured a warning as Snape swept in and Harry quickly took his place beside Ron.

* * * * *

Harry made a habit of chatting to the snake whenever he knew Snape was elsewhere. He was rather startled to discover that not only had Snape managed to find an hour a day to practice speaking with the snake, but had begun to regard the reptile as his familiar. Sometimes Harry would creep into the classroom to find the snake missing from its tank; on subsequent visits, it informed him that Snape took it out to catch frogs by the lake or to his rooms to bask at the fireside.   
  
"Hasss he made any progressss with Nagini?" Harry enquired. This was, after all, the purpose of keeping the snake.  
  
"Yesss," said the adder. "He hasss asssked my advice. He hasss remained after meetingsss to ssspeak with the big sssnake. Ssshe isss moulting and he hasss made a lotion to help to ssoften and ssshed her ssskin. It issss very good," it added, with a nod. "I have never ssshed ssso easssily."  
  
"That'sss good," Harry said, and as an afterthought, he added, "you won't tell him that I asssked, will you? He'll be angry and he'll think I'm ssspying on him."  
  
"He isss often angry," the snake said thoughtfully. "But he isss not angry with me. He is very sssad."  
  
"Sssad?" Harry asked, wondering if he had misunderstood. Snape, sad? How unlikely!  
  
"Oh yesss. Old White-Beard makesss him very angry and very sssad. Old White-Beard is curssssed."  
  
"Hisss hand..." Harry murmured, his heart sinking.  
  
"Old White-Beard issss dying."  
  
"Oh no..."  
  
"Sssso he hasss told my friend Sssseverussss to kill him before the cursssse doesss."  
  
Harry had been crouching beside the tank, speaking to the snake through the glass. The shock of this announcement sent him collapsing backwards onto the floor with a startled cry. He scrambled up again, looking around furtively and hoping that no-one heard him.   
  
"Oh shit," Harry whispered, as the terrible ramifications of this plan unfurled in his brain. "Don't tell him that I know. It issss very, very important that no-one knowssss that I know."  
  
"Yessss," agreed the little reptile, looking slightly smug, if such a thing was possible. "That'sss what Old White-Beard ssssaid. You are not to know anything." It cocked its head and whispered, "I feel sssomeone coming."  
  
Harry quickly pulled his Invisibility Cloak over his head and crept across the classroom. The door was pushed open before he reached it, and he flattened himself against the wall and held his breath as Snape came in.  
  
There was nothing dramatic about his entrance. He walked quietly to the tank and remarked casually, "You're awake, are you?" in English. Then in slightly accented but perfectly understandable Parseltongue, he said, "It'sss all gathering ssspeed, little ssserpent. There'ssss little more I can do, everything dependssss upon that wretched boy."   
  
Snape waved his wand and the lid hovered above the tank. He reached in and gently lifted the snake out, placing it around his shoulders, where it flicked its tongue at his face.   
  
"You tassste tired, Sssseverussss."  
  
Snape snorted.  
  
"Thissss issss nothing, little friend. My massssterssss are moving their piecesss into place and we all sssstand or fall according to their whimsss."  
  
"You think you will fall," the adder whispered.   
  
"I know I ssshall," Snape replied and walked out of the room.

* * * * *

Harry's attitude towards Snape underwent a gradual alteration as he assimilated what he had learned from the adder. Snape was still an evil-tempered, spiteful and biased git with bad teeth and a poor choice in shampoo, but Harry began to realise that what he was seeing was a man clinging to sanity by his fingernails. This knowledge did not stop him from resenting Snape very thoroughly when the greasy bat assigned him detention, yet sometimes he found himself watching the man and wondering how he found the strength to carry on.   
  
The little adder kept Harry up to date on Snape's campaign to transfer Nagini's affections from Voldemort.   
  
"Sshe sssometimesss eatsss people," the snake said, casually, as if discussing the dispatching of mice. "Her massster makesss her eat them but ssshe hatesss it. They tassste unpleassssant and give her a sssstomach-ache. Ssseverusss hassss made her a liquid to drink to make her sssstomach better."  
  
"A potion," Harry whispered, reluctantly admiring the ability of a wizard able to brew a potion to cure indigestion in a reptile.   
  
"He feedsss her rabbitssss. Ssshe likessss rabbitsss."  
  
"Thanksss," Harry said, hurrying to his seat as Snape entered the classroom in a swirl of robes.

* * * * *

When Snape fled from the castle, Harry did not think to look for the snake until the next day. It was gone. The tank lay smashed upon the floor—glass, earth and ferns all muddied together with the water from the charmed waterfall—but there was no sign of the fat, striped reptile. Harry did not know what to think or who to trust, but he wondered if Snape was in a far worse position, able to trust no-one. At least he had Ron and Hermione; Snape had only a little snake.

* * * * *

Hermione poked her head out of the tent and Harry heard her breath hitch suddenly, and she turned to look at him with a frown.  
  
"Harry, there's a snake outside."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Come and look."  
  
An adder was watching the door of the tent with its head propped on its curled flank.   
  
"Greetingsss," it said, and Harry recognised it by its voice and the way it flicked its tongue on the air. He had almost forgotten about Snape and the adder, in the haste to unravel the mysteries of the Deathly Hallows and the hunt for Voldemort's Horcruxes.  
  
"What are you doing here?" he asked and it raised its head.  
  
"Nagini isss waiting for you in Godric'ssss Hollow," it said. "Ssseveruss sssaid to take care and to watch for the sssilver doe."  
  
"What is it, Harry?" Hermione asked but he held up a hand to stop her.  
  
"Isss that all? Did he sssay anything -"  
  
"I mussst go," the snake whispered.   
  
"Isss he here? Ssssnape?"  
  
"No, he will wait until you have gone and then collect me."  
  
"It's a message from Snape," Harry told Hermione quickly.  
  
"Don't trust him, Harry!"  
  
He shook his head. He had never told her that Dumbledore's death had been pre-arranged and he rather wished now that he had confided in his friend.  
  
"Take care," he said as the reptile slid away into the undergrowth and he heard a tiny voice call, "You take care, green-eyed one," in reply.

* * * * *

Everything hinged upon this moment, as Voldemort swiped the air with the Elder Wand and Nagini's cage rolled forwards until it enclosed Snape's head and shoulders. Snape stared at the monstrous snake and she stared back as Voldemort spoke in Parseltongue.  
  
 _"Kill."_  
  
Harry held his breath as Voldemort began turn away, confident that his snake would do his bidding. As Nagini swayed, undecided, her head cocked ready to strike, something small moved down on the floor, something patterned in yellow and brown. Harry's eyes widened as the adder struck at Voldemort's bare foot.   
  
Voldemort let out a startled exclamation and kicked reflexively, sending the little snake spinning away across the floor. Nagini undulated in her cage, her coils gleaming as she turned, as she opened her mouth and said, "I ssshall not..."  
  
She lunged, her head popping through the bubble of her cage, for it was made to protect her, not to imprison her. She threw her long, muscular body around her erstwhile master and struck at him.  
  
Snape dropped and rolled as Harry thrust aside the packing crate and scrambled out into the room. By the time he, Hermione and Ron were through the gap, Snape was already back on his feet, although his face was white and his eyes wide with shock.  
  
Voldemort was grappling with the snake, holding her neck to prevent her from biting at his face.   
  
"Potter!" Snape exclaimed and Voldemort turned his head, his eyes glowing red. Nagini hissed and tightened her grip.  
  
"Ssshall I kill him now?" she asked.  
  
"No!" Snape exclaimed in Parseltongue, "hold him!"  
  
"Traitor!" Voldemort screamed, frothing in his rage and fear as he struggled in the great snake's coils.   
  
"Potter, listen to me." Snape gripped his arm, and despite everything, Harry felt how the man's hand trembled as he pulled him aside. Snape stared into his eyes and said, " _Legilimens!_ "  
  
Harry felt that he was drowning beneath an icy waterfall of knowledge. Everything that he thought he knew about Snape was irrelevant now, as he felt the weight of the man's guilt, his vows and his terrible and deadly courage. Harry nodded once.  
  
"Tell Nagini to let him go," he said to Snape, and turned to face Voldemort. "I'll meet you outside," Harry told him. He ignored Hermione and Ron, closing his fingers around the Snitch in his pocket. "I don't want anyone else to die. It'll be just you and me, like it was always meant to be. In the Forest in an hour. Right?"  
  
Voldemort's lipless mouth twisted into a cruel travesty of amusement.  
  
"You throw away your advantage just like that? You are an idiot, Potter! A foolish child."  
  
"Probably," Harry agreed. Then, because he was waiting for it, he threw a _Protego_ shield up as Voldemort's wand flicked towards Snape and a curse spun away and blasted a hole in the wall. Voldemort's red eyes widened slightly and he bared his teeth.  
  
"An hour," Harry said, and he hardly recognised his own voice because it was as cold as ice.

* * * * *

"You'll stay with me?" Harry said, clutching the Resurrection Stone in his hand.  
  
 _"Until the very end," said James.  
  
"They won't be able to see you?" asked Harry.  
  
"We are part of you," said Sirius. "Invisible to anyone else."  
  
Harry looked at his mother.  
  
"Stay close to me," he said quietly._   
  
"This is my decision, my choice," he whispered as they walked along, sliding between the Dementors that still lurked in the Forest.  
  
"Harry, my dearest boy, the snake must be destroyed, otherwise Voldemort can return again," Lily reminded him.  
  
"Yeah, I know. I told Ron and Hermione and Neville, they'll make sure she's killed."  
  
"Should have told that bastard Snape to finish her off while he could," Sirius muttered and then glanced rather guiltily at Lily, who shook her head in resignation.   
  
"Voldemort would have killed him if he'd tried; he has to protect her even though she's turned against him, because of the Horcrux inside her," Harry explained.   
  
"And Snape still has much to do," his father murmured. "Sometimes we can see what lies ahead, Harry, and much as it pains me to say this, Snape's role will be vital to everything we hold most dear."  
  
Lily smiled proudly at him and took his hand, and they took their places at Harry's side as he walked out to meet his enemy.

* * * * *

Hagrid carried Harry towards the castle. Tears poured down the face of the half-giant, and before him, Voldemort glided with the giant snake draped around his shoulders. Whatever he had said to persuade her to obey him once again, Harry had no idea. He wondered if the Dark Lord had put the reptile under the Imperius curse.   
  
McGonagall screamed as she identified Harry's body, and he could hear Ron and Hermione crying out, and his heart went out to them. Still, he dared not move, not as Ron shouted defiance at the Dark Lord, or even as Neville declared, _"I'll join you when hell freezes over!"  
  
The slash of the silver blade could not be heard over the roar of the oncoming crowd or the sounds of the clashing giants or of the stampeding centaurs, and yet, it seemed to draw every eye. With a single stroke Neville sliced off the great snake’s head, which spun high into the air, gleaming in the light flooding from the entrance hall, and Voldemort’s mouth was open in a scream of fury that nobody could hear, and the snake’s body thudded to the ground at his feet._  
  
Leaping down from Hagrid's arms, Harry shoved his way into the Great Hall in pursuit of Voldemort. He watched as Bellatrix fell before the wand of Molly Weasley.  
  
 _“Protego!” roared Harry, and the Shield Charm expanded in the middle of the Hall, and Voldemort stared around for the source as Harry pulled off the Invisibility Cloak at last.  
  
The yell of shock, the cheers, the screams on every side of: “Harry!” “HE’S ALIVE!” were stifled at once. The crowd was afraid, and silence fell abruptly and completely as Voldemort and Harry looked at each other, and began, at the same moment, to circle each other.  
  
“I don’t want anyone else to help,” Harry said loudly, and in the total silence his voice carried like a trumpet call. “It’s got to be like this. It’s got to be me.”  
  
Voldemort hissed.  
  
“Potter doesn’t mean that,” he said, his red eyes wide. “This isn’t how he works, is it? Who are you going to use as a shield today, Potter?”  
  
“Nobody,” said Harry simply. “There are no more Horcruxes. It’s just you and me. Neither can live while the other survives, and one of us is about to leave for good…”   
  
“Dumbledore is dead!” Voldemort hurled the words at Harry as though they would cause him unendurable pain. “His body decays in the marble tomb in the grounds of this castle, I have seen it, Potter, and he will not return!”  
  
“Yes, Dumbledore is dead,” said Harry calmly, “but you didn’t have him killed. He chose his own manner of dying, chose it months before he died, arranged the whole thing with the man you thought was your servant.”  
  
“What childish dream is this?” said Voldemort, but still he did not strike, and his red eyes did not waver from Harry’s._  
  
"I was never yours." Snape's voice was low and level, but unmistakeable, as he stepped out from the crowd and into the clear space around Harry and Voldemort. The Dark Lord's red eyes widened and he let out a hiss of rage and hatred, but Snape did not flinch. "Never yours. Albus Dumbledore chose the manner of his death; I killed him at his own request."  
  
The Death Eaters whispered and a couple of wands jerked in Snape's direction, but Harry flicked his wand and his Shield Charm spread out between Snape and those who threatened him. Snape cocked a sardonic eyebrow, as if to suggest that he needed no man's protection.   
  
"Snape never beat Dumbledore," Harry explained, as he and Voldemort slowly circled one another.   
  
_“But then, Potter, Dumbledore as good as gave me the wand!” Voldemort’s voice shook with malicious pleasure. “I stole the wand from its last master’s tomb! I removed it against the last master’s wishes! Its power is mine!”  
  
“You still don’t get it, Riddle, do you? Possessing the wand isn’t enough! Holding it, using it, doesn’t make it really yours. Didn’t you listen to Ollivander? The wand chooses the wizard…The Elder Wand recognized a new master before Dumbledore died, someone who never even laid a hand on it. The new master removed the wand from Dumbledore against his will, never realizing exactly what he had done, or that the world’s most dangerous wand had given him its allegiance…”  
  
Voldemort’s chest rose and fell rapidly, and Harry could feel the curse coming, feel it building inside the wand pointed at his face.  
  
“The true master of the Elder Wand was Draco Malfoy.”  
  
Blank shock showed in Voldemort’s face for a moment, but then it was gone.  
  
“But what does it matter?” he said softly. “Even if you are right, Potter, it makes no difference to you and me. You no longer have the phoenix wand, we duel on skill alone…and after I have killed you, I can attend to Draco Malfoy…”  
  
“But you’re too late,” said Harry. “You’ve missed your chance. I got there first. I overpowered Draco weeks ago. I took his wand from him.”  
  
Harry twitched the hawthorn wand, and he felt the eyes of everyone in the Hall upon it.  
  
“So it all comes down to this, doesn’t it?” whispered Harry. “Does the wand in your hand know its last master was Disarmed? Because if it does…I am the true master of the Elder Wand.”  
  
A red-glow burst suddenly across the enchanted sky above them as an edge of dazzling sun appeared over the sill of the nearest window. The light hit both of their faces at the same time, so that Voldemort’s was suddenly a flaming blur. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he too yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco’s wand:  
  
“Avada Kedavra!”  
  
“Expelliarmus!”_

* * * * *

  
It only goes to show, as Ron later pointed out, that some people never learn. Voldemort fell by his own rebounded curse and that was the end of that.  
  
Harry caught hold of Snape's sleeve as the Headmaster attempted to slip away. He had been watching for that, too.  
  
"No, you don't," he said quietly. "You're a hero as well."  
  
"Let go, Potter," Snape snapped and Harry shook his head. Staring into the angry black eyes, he saw a distinctive pattern of brown on yellow out of the corner of his eye. The adder was curled around Snape's neck, inside the collar of his robe.   
  
"I didn't realissse," he said in Parseltongue. "I thought you hated me but it isssn't that sssimple, isss it? You _want_ me!"  
  
Snape froze.  
  
"I could feel it," Harry whispered, "when you ssshared your memoriesss in the ssshack. You could hardly ssstand to lisssten to me ssspeak to the sssnake, it turned you on ssso much. That'sss why you ssstopped our lesssonsss."  
  
"What do you want now, Potter?" Snape's voice was low and poisonous.  
  
"He wantsss you," remarked a small, serpentine voice, "and you want him. You want to have sssex together." If ever a snake sounded smug, that was it.   
  
Harry was running on instinct and adrenaline.   
  
"Yeah," he said, reverting back to English. "She's right, I think I do."  
  
The flat, triangular head rose up beside Snape's jaw and rubbed affectionately against him.  
  
"Yessss, do it," hissed the snake.   
  
"Why?" Snape asked. He seemed just a little lost, as if the forces that had been driving his entire life had relaxed their hold and he was no longer sure of his own needs or desires.  
  
Harry reached out and stroked a finger along the snake's neck. Ron noticed and smiled, obviously recalling the role that the little adder had played in Voldemort's defeat. He did not realise that the back of Harry's fingers lightly brushed against Snape's cheek, or that Snape did not draw away.  
  
"I still don't like you, Potter," he said.  
  
"And I don't like you either," Harry replied. "But you were ready to die for me."  
  
"And you, for me." Snape did move away then, and drew his robes close around his narrow shoulders. "Come up to my office, Potter, we have matters to discuss. I'm sure that your friends will be here when you return."  
  
Harry nodded and they returned to the castle side by side, close enough that the adder was able to lean across and nuzzle against Harry's head as they walked.

* * * * *

  
Harry and Ron became Aurors and Hermione joined the Department of Mysteries. Snape and Harry spent the next decade declaring their mutual dislike, until it seemed rather silly and they stopped. By then, everyone knew that they were shagging like, well, like snakes, anyway. Sometimes on the Headmaster's desk, much to the entertainment of the adders nesting in the bottom right-hand drawer, but as Snape pointed out, the job was enough to drive anyone mad and he was allowed his little perks.   
  
He was actually a very efficient, innovative and surprisingly popular Headmaster. Most people assumed that it was Harry's influence. Snape let them believe it. The sex was worth it and there was nothing quite like Parseltongue for talking dirty. It was just as well that the staff and school governors couldn't understand what the adders underneath his desk were actually saying.

-The End-


End file.
